Home Grown
by Call me Red
Summary: I am morally opposed to writing these blasted things...we should all start a riot against summaries...oh, never mind. It would be a hollow victory anyway.


  
  
  
Disclaimer: Uh, I'm actually Stan Lee in disguise. No, really, I am.  
  
Author's Insane Ramble: I have this habit of talking to myself, and one day (while deep in converstation) I had a wacky idea and decided it to steal it on myself. The X-Men need theme songs! So, after talking it over with myself and the voices in my head, here's what I came up with:   
  
Scott: I Think I'm Paranoid, by Garbage (mainly for the title, I admit).   
Logan: Otherside, by Red Hot Chilli Peppers (I swear, it's uncanny; listen to the lyrics!)  
Jean: Criminal, by Fiona Apple (I'll still love you, Jean, no matter what those silly fic writers say!)  
Charles: American Badass, by Kid Rock (cause let's face it kids, he is the ORIGINAL)  
Bobby: Original Prankster, by the Offspring (Okay, in a moment of complete lack of inspiration...)  
Hank: I Feel Pretty (it doesn't matter the version, I just picture him in a little hat!)   
Mystique: If Everybody Looked the Same, by Groove Armada (don't ask how she got into all this)  
Warren: Uptown Girl, by Billy Joel (cause let's face it, kids, he is the ORIGINAL)   
Madelyn Pryor: My Own Worst Enemy, by Lit (for reasons that don't need explaining)  
Remy: Sexy Boy, by Air (again, self explanatory)  
Jubilee: Hate this Place, by the Goo Goo Dolls (I think it fits into the whole 'teen angst' concept, don't you?)  
  
Well, enough of that nonsense, let's get on to what we're all here for (presumably).   
  
  
  
  
  
Home Grown   
  
  
She sat in the driver's seat of her car, gripping the wheel tighter and tighter as the moments ticked by. Eventually, she knew, she'd have to either get out, or turn the key and go back home. And neither option was particularly inviting.   
  
Jean simply stared at the house from the street. Amazing how the place she had grown up in could look so foreign to her. Easy, she thought to herself as she checked her reflection in her compact. I did a lot of my growing up somewhere else.   
  
The air in the car had that particular cool feeling that occurs after you've been parked across your parent's house going on ten minutes. Why, she asked herself, couldn't she bring herself to reach over and pull the handle, and hoist her butt onto the curb?   
  
Hmmm, guilt, probably, she concluded after a few seconds, right before she assured herself a little more stalling couldn't hurt anyone.   
  
She was able to forget for a spilt second how hard it had been to exist the past few months, preoccupied by her childish thoughts of running home. But, unfortunately, her parents were worried about their poor daughter, their poor, grieving daughter, and insisted that she come for dinner.   
  
Honestly, she'd almost forgotten what her first home looked like. Ever since she was twelve, she failed to call this house in Annadale-on-Hudson her home. The mansion, that was where she lived. That was were she grew up. This was just where she spent a few years in the beginning of her life.   
  
Jean realized she had grown up without her family.   
  
Once, on a whim (and she didn't have many of those left) she'd picked up the dictionary, in one of those 'oh look a dictionary why don't I pick it up and check whatever pops into my head' moods, and looked up the word apocalypse. And what did it say? "A revelation, especially a revelation or vision of a great world upheaval."  
  
Huh. How 'bout that. Five bucks Scott said would have laughed at the description.   
  
To be on the safe side (and to make sure she didn't end up screeching away after all) she slid the keys out of the ignition and dropped them into her purse. There. Much better. Out of sight, out of mind.   
  
Cautiously one hand was laid upon the cool metal of the door handle. She was being such a baby...grow up, for heaven's sakes. Bad enough all your friends are treating you like a four year old, she lectured in her head, that you should start too.   
  
You see, tired as she was of being treated as the delicate, heartbroken widow, her current state wasn't helping. Everyone, whether they meant to or not, lived around her like she was some kind of frail glass doll. No one even raised their voice near her, in case the mere sound might shatter her into pieces. It was touching, in a way, but so stifling.   
  
But it was also true she played into it (in all honesty). She couldn't help it most days; when she managed to roll out of bed, she found the bed always empty. And what kind of motivation was that for the rest of the day? She walked around her life with a distant look in her eyes and rarely used a voice above a distracted whisper. She was always somewhere else (or at the very least, her mind was).   
  
She had become a shadow of herself. She opened the door and stepped onto the cooling asphalt.   
  
Her parents had been almost fond of Scott, she realized with a wry smile. No small miracle, since her mother and father were among the hardest to please people of the world. When she had brought him home to meet them that first time, so very long ago ('it's about time,' her mother had said to her in a passing moment) he was so worried. So damned nervous. Jean had to stop herself from laughing a bit.   
  
She wondered why mourning couldn't always be like this; all smiles and remembering the good times instead of dwelling on the morbid. Oh well. Human nature, she guessed.   
  
Now she felt like a little girl again, coming home after a bad report card or a phone call from school. Jean hadn't seen her family since...what happened, and only talked briefly on the phone. The last thing she needed was more stepping on eggshells. More 'oh honey, I can't imagine what you're going through' and 'take it one day at a time' or 'the good ones go so young'. Of course they did, she had thought bitterly to herself a thousand times, the 'good ones' are a dying breed. She wasn't sure she could handle any more of those collective side-glances concerned friends would give to each other as she entered a room, all well meaning, naturally. She walked across the traffic-free street.   
  
She wanted, more than anything now, to be a person again. Not a widow. Not a mourner. Not someone to be treated civilly simply because her husband had managed to die on her. She wanted to get into arguments over who got to hold the remote (as of now, she got first choice); she wanted to get mad at someone for stealing what left of her toothpaste (a fading memory); she wanted to yell at someone for leaving the front door open without secretly being accused of 'taking things badly'.   
  
Complaining would get her nowhere. What was she supposed to say? 'Attention, everyone, I'd like you all to be as normal to me as possible, 'kay? No more of this pity crap. Are we all in agreement?' No, that wouldn't work at all. There was nothing at all she could do. Half the reason they treated her so delicately was because they actually felt how she seemed.   
  
Funny logic, but it made sense in her head. The team (that ridiculous term Scott used to no end; no 'hey guys', no 'everybody' it was always the 'team') had felt loss before, but she guessed they'd never been able to project their feelings onto a still living individual. Like, they could 'pay respect' to the dead man by protecting his widow. Protecting her what, though? From life?   
  
She rang the doorbell.   
  
Jean was let in by a young girl whose face she failed to remember. New maid, she reasoned as she noticed little had changed since she visited last. The girl, lost on who she was or if anyone was expecting her, asked who was calling.   
  
"Jean. I'm the daughter," she replied in a slightly amused voice. She'd have to remember to address herself as 'the daughter' more often. She liked the sound of it. The girl led her into the library and managed to assure Jean her parents would be right down.   
  
The library had been her second favourite room as a kid. It was her father's pride and joy, relatively small, but useful, and nothing like the massive collection Charles kept at the mansion. Jean adored the red chair over in the corner (still there, by the way, and looking the same as when she left it). Her father kept mostly psychological and sociology books and other such nonsense to stock the shelves, but reserved a space for the fairy tales and otherwise fiction his girls liked so much. Sometimes, he would even read to them (John Grey believed in literacy with a passion). Mind you, it was without the funny voices and clever additions most children recall about storytime, with every word read with the same authoritative tone he used in the rest of his life.   
  
Still, Jean believed her father was the best storyteller there ever was.   
  
Look at her, she was practically crying. Jeannie, you've gone to the dogs, she thought to herself as she dabbed the pool collecting in her eye away. The door clicked behind her.   
  
"Darling, come here." Jean turned to see her mother rushing in (though, it was her own version of rushing; her mother never hurried for anyone). She grabbed her daughter by the hands.   
  
"Here. Let me look at you," she instructed, turning Jean's face right to left as if checking for lobotomy scars. "Oh honey, you look awful." One hand reached up to smooth her own hair, as if guaranteeing she still looked perfect.   
  
"It was a long drive, mother."   
  
"I'm sorry your father couldn't pick you up. He was at that dreadful seminar all day long, and -"  
  
"I'm fine, mother. Really," Jean assured the elder Mrs. Grey as she caught sight of her father out of the corner of her eye. "Hi daddy."   
  
The hug that her husband received (that she did not) didn't go completely unnoticed by Elaine Grey. She simply told herself her daughter was in mourning, after all, and couldn't be expected to be entirely polite. She sat herself on a small white couch.   
  
"Jean, come sit down," her mother instructed, patting on the couch beside her. "I think we need to have a little talk."   
  
Here it comes. What she had been bracing herself against ever since she walked in the door. The talk. Her mother sent away her father to do other menial tasks and concentrated on her youngest daughter sitting before her.   
  
"Jean," she began. "First of all, I'm going to say that I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you."   
  
"You hardly need to do that, mother."   
  
"No, really. It's never easy for a wife to lose her husband. And especially so young."   
  
Jean clenched her teeth as she recognized what her mother was saying as the speech of a hundred other sorrowful mourners. All their apologies for what could never be reversed were all the same. "I'd have to agree," she forced out.   
  
"The only good thing I see in all this," her mother continued as if Jean had never spoken up, "is that you're still young yourself. Young and pretty. I've always told you that, haven't I, darling? You're a very pretty girl."   
  
"Yes, mother." Jean replied mechanically.   
  
"I always prided myself on my two girls. So lovely. You were both the envy of this neighbourhood. When you were children, of course." Her mother's fingers dangled around a string of flawless pearls. "My two little angels."   
  
For once she was somewhat grateful for her mother's self-absorption. It meant a lot less pity spent on Jean.   
  
"Mother?"   
  
She was lost in the memories of the glory days when she realized an entire breath had passed without her voice speaking. "I'm sorry, I got a little lost in the moment." She laughed weakly. "Look darling, all I'm trying to say is that while I both loved you both so much, I was pouring all my hopes into you. I mean, all Sarah wanted to do was run off to that silly college and be an engineer. But not my Jeannie."   
  
A sudden cloud of despair washed over Jean, as she was used to in the past few months. Why was her mother subjecting her to this now, of all times?   
  
"You could have been an actress, I'll bet. Don't you remember that little play you were in? Oh, what was it called...?"   
  
"Romeo and Juliet?" Jean offered in a whisper, wishing she had never left the car.   
  
"Of course. Such potential!" She let out a sad sigh. "If only..."   
  
She knew what her mother wanted to say. If only you hadn't turned out to be a mutie. If only you hadn't secretly been given the bad genes. If only...we never had to send you away.   
  
"Mother," she started. "I'm not in the mood for this right now."   
  
At first the poised Elaine Grey was taken off guard by her child's abruptness. "Oh, well, I'm sorry if..."   
  
"Everyone's sorry, mother. Everyone seems to be sorry when it's too late." Was it her imagination, or did her voice sound as hard as stone?   
  
A pause. "You father and I-we adored Scott. We really did. If only...we could have gotten to know him a little better."   
  
Jean scolded herself on being so short with her poor mother. All she was doing was 'helping', in her own ...way. "You would have loved him, mother. I'm sure."   
  
"He seemed like such a nice boy. So polite, and courteous."   
  
"He's not so polite," Jean smiled in spite of herself, "as he was shy. He was painfully shy."   
  
Her mother nodded kindly, gazing at the daughter that had left her childhood behind too early, and perhaps too readily. She doubted if she really knew Jean as well as she claimed to; the graceful, essentially tragic woman before her hardly seemed like the little girl who spent the whole of her birthday money on goldfish once upon a time. It almost felt like she was entertaining a stranger.   
  
"Give your old mum a kiss?"   
  
Jean smiled at the request, and leaned in to place a peck on her cheek. To her surprise, her mother wrapped her into a hug.   
  
"You'll be fine, Jean. You're a strong girl, and you'll be fine." She might not know a great deal about this girl anymore. But at least that much she knew, to her own relief. Elaine could call herself many things (some not so flattering) but she'd always taught her daughters to be tough on the inside while to seem sweet and harmless outside. Thank God she'd gotten through to Jean (Sarah forgot to emulate the second part, about seeming sweet?). She was her mother's daughter. That's the way she'd been raised.   
  
Jean stood up abruptly. "I've got to go, mother." She lowered her eyes and brushed back a strand of red hair. "I'm sorry to leave so soon, but-"  
  
"Duty calls?"   
  
"Right." Jean nodded slowly, wondering just how much her mother pretended not to notice. "Say bye to Dad for me." She spun around and nearly collided with the new maid. She muttered an apology and made a streamline for the door.   
  
"It's alright, Sylvia," Elaine said to the maid, turning her back to her departing child. "Tell Cook there's just two for supper."   
  
  
  
  
Keys, keys, where did I put the blasted keys? Jean chanted as her heels clicked once again across the pavement. In a flash, she remembered it was her purse, and within seconds she was busy fumbling with them to open the door.   
  
Seating behind the wheel again, she was safe. No more threats of a rampant do-gooder parent trying to make their woeful, pitiful child break out of their self-imposed misery. But...why couldn't her mother just have lived up to that? Why did she have to...damn it!   
  
She allowed her head to thump against the cool, almost damp plastic of the steering wheel, the slight pain bringing her a drop of comfort.   
Of all the times her mother picks to redeem herself. Her timing is terrible. Of course, it has to be during HER mourning period. The unspoken, unmentioned, unacknowledged rivalry she'd always felt with her mother was bubbling again.   
  
But she still had no idea what to make of it all. Had she just been what she wanted, a person again, for a half hour of her life, or was it simply her mind playing tricks on her? Well, no, probably not. Her mind was a disciplined force, rarely allowed to misbehave. So she had then. Been a person again.   
  
How peculiar. She'd never expected her mother (of all people on the earth) to be the one to bring her back. Yes, bring her back, from the self-induced cloud of desolation. And all it took was a little hope. A little sparkle, a tiny flicker, of delicious hope. Not swells of pity. Not forgiving sorrow. Not aching regret. Hope.   
  
You should go back, a voice inside her head told her.   
  
"Yes...I should," Jean agreed out loud, just as she turned the ignition and drove away into the impending night.   
  
  
  
The End  



End file.
